crowded cities propose the concept of a ‘crowbar’, a smart machine training crows to pick up cigarette butts from the street. the idea is an evolution of the ‘crow box’, an open source project that dispenses peanuts after crows insert coins – in essence, a vending machine for birds. these are two seemingly farfetched ideas that insist you do not underestimate the cleverness of a crow and those who are marginally aware will not. this particular species is ranked among the most intelligent on the planet, with a relative brain size measure equal to chimpanzees (a simple search on any video hosting site and subsequent four hours spent in amazement provides enough proof).
the device will autonomously teach crows

crows have an understanding of causality and can therefore conceptualize, create, and use tools. in experiments exploring this notion they have proven their ability to play, learn from each other, and even count. devices like this utilize this fact by autonomously training crows to associate food with a certain activity. the first step presents the crow with food on a tray in the machine teaching the creature that the crowbar is in fact a new-age tuck shop for birds. the food is cleverly placed next to a cigarette butt getting the crow used to its existence before the food is taken away, only dispensed when the crow arrives – the second step in this learning process. in this step, ‘the crow gets used to the machine doing things’, bob says.

the design concept was nominated for a dutch accenture innovation award

the third step is crucial as here the food is completely removed leaving only the butt. when the crow arrives, clever as they are, it eventually knocks the butt into the receptacle causing the food to drop. this step is repeated until the crow masters the activity and only then is human intervention necessary. step four involves the scattering of cigarette butts around the machine, mimicking those that are found ‘in the wild’ encouraging the bird to reset its life’s mission, destined to clean-up after the human race.
the experiment is sourcing funding to realise necessary experiments

to be able to complete the project, the pair is looking for ways to fund a serious experiment to understand the possibility of training wild crows. at present the duo currently have all working pieces separately but are yet to work them together.
the duo report difficulties in teaching the machine to recognise cigarette butts

ignorance could only assume the proposal wont experience some sort of backlash. the company have already acknowledged the potential sacrifice of a few crows in their bid to clean the streets of butts or perhaps the solution will conjure a response in those causing the problem – the cigarette smokers. if crows become too efficient cigarettes could be scavenged before they’ve even reached the pavement, leaving city smokers stunned as the dedicated trainees make off with their packs of 20. then again, as some governments increase the efforts of their plight to ban smoking, perhaps the opening of crowbars in major cities could kill two birds with one stone (or butt).

Bottle deposit works great to get people to bring empty bottles back to the shop. Although it’s just a few cents per bottle over here (8-25 cents), you often see poor people looking into trash cans searching for bottles. 1 cent per cigarette butt sounds good.

this will be fun when crows realise that cigarettes in peoples mouths and hands are as good as buds to het food, sort of cure the problem at it’s root…..kill two birds with one stone….well you get the picture! less smokers

“Why don’t we train our humans to not litter?” – Let’s see 5K years of history and still to this day we litter. It is unfortunate, but should we note yet again: necessity is the mother of invention – and this is a GREAT one! (if it works)

Birds are poisoned by tobacco. This is the most cruel concept I’ve seen all year. Even tiny bits of tobacco can make a bird ill or kill it. A good friend lost a precious talking Mynah Bird because of a butt left around that he forgot to pick up (that one day only–before that he was extremely careful).

The most horrible design project on Designboom. Didn’t expect Designboom would even share such a dumb thing Who ever designed it why don’t you go and pick the buds. leave the animals and birds alone out of this.
Thanks
A friendly Crow

LOG IN

designboom's comment policy guidelines
generally speaking, if we publish something, it's because we're genuinely interested in the subject.
we hope you'll share this interest and if you know even more about it, please share!
our goal in the discussion threads is to have good conversation and we prefer constructive opinions.
we and our readers have fun with entertaining ones.
designboom welcomes alerts about typos, incorrect names, and the like.
the correction is at the discretion of the post editor and may not happen immediately.

what if you disagree with what we or another commenter has to say?
let's hear it! but please understand that offensive, inappropriate,
or just plain annoying comments may be deleted or shortened.

- please do not make racist, sexist, anti-semitic, homophobic or otherwise offensive comments.
- please don't personally insult the writers or your fellow commenters.
- please avoid using offensive words, replacing a few letters with asterisks is not a valid workaround.
- please don't include your website or e-mail address in your comments for the purpose of self-promotion.
- please respect jury verdicts and do not discuss offensively on the competition results
(there is only one fist prize, and designboom usually asks renown professionals to help us to promote talent.
in addition to the awarded designs, we do feel that almost all deserve our attention, that is why we publish
the best 100-200 entries too.)

a link is allowed in comments as long as they add value in the form of information, images, humor, etc.
(links to the front page of your personal blog or website are not okay).
unwelcome links (to commercial products or services of others, offensive material etc. ) will be redacted.
and, ...
yes, spam gets banned. no, we do not post fake comments.

a diverse digital database that acts as a valuable guide in gaining insight and information about a product directly from the manufacturer, and serves as a rich reference point in developing a project or scheme.